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ANATOMY OF A HYPOTHETICAL TERRORISM CASE Director Mueller Takes You
on a Verbal "Ride Along"

03/27/06

You've
heard that terrorism cases are
solved by uniting efforts of local police,
the FBI, and our international law enforcement
partners...but just exactly how does that
actually work out in real life?

Director
Mueller took time last Friday to sketch
the process out in his address to The
Houston Forum, and we thought you'd be
interested too. Come along for a "ride
along" on a hypothetical case that
starts with "Officer John Smith"
of the Houston PD.

Officer
Smith checks his secure LEO
computer account before going on duty
and reads an FBI/Department of Homeland
Security Intelligence Bulletin that
notes certain Europeans associated with
a recent terrorist attack may be living
in the U.S. and did call phone numbers
in the U.S. with pre-paid cell phones
that had been bought in Texas.

On
duty, Smith sees a car speed through
a red light in downtown Houston, pulls
the car over, and asks the driver for
his license and registration. He runs
license, license plate, and registration
info through his patrol car NCIC
computer and instantly discovers the
car is stolen.

Moments
later he gets an alert on his computer
from TSC, the Terrorist
Screening Center: the driver's name
is on a watch list. Smith calls the
Center to get the full report as well
as guidance on what questions to ask
the driver.

While
listening to the driver claim he's just
a student from Europe studying at the
local university and doing some sightseeing,
Smith looks hard into the car—and spots
multiple cell phones, a camera, and
a map piled on the front seat. "What's
that map?" he says. And the driver
hands him a map with circles drawn around
a sports stadium, a hospital, a shopping
mall, and the port. Smith arrests the
driver for possession of a stolen car
and takes him in for questioning.

At
his first chance, Smith calls a police
colleague who is serving on the FBI's
JTTF
(Joint Terrorism Task Force) in Houston
and asks her to check State Department
databases.

Houston
PD takes the driver's fingerprints and
runs them through the IAFIS
database—and gets a hit. The driver
has been arrested before, but under
another name.

The
phone rings and it's the Houston JTTF:
yes, the driver IS in the U.S. on a
student visa, but is NOT enrolled in
any university.

Back
to TSC: Is there a hit on its databases
for the alias of the driver? YES. And
now the TSC FBI Agent runs the cell
phone info through investigative databases
and finds one of the phones was called
from a phone connected to the very European
terrorist attack Smith had read about
just hours before. The TSC agent advises
he's already alerted FBI Legal
Attaché offices in Europe
and brought U.S. and European law enforcement
and intelligence agencies into the loop.

In
Director Mueller's words, "And so,
within hours of the arrest, the Houston
Police Department, the FBI, the CIA, and
European law enforcement and intelligence
agencies are working hand-in-hand on this
investigation. Has the man been sent to
the United States to do reconnaissance
on possible targets? Or is he here to
recruit members for a terrorist cell?
As the pieces of the puzzle come together,
it becomes clear that the work of just
one police officer set in motion
a chain of events that led to an international
investigation, the identification of a
potential terrorist cell, and the prevention
of a possible terrorist attack."

We
urge you to read the whole
speech...for some real life examples
of this hypothetical "ride along."